History of Online E-Learning Software

The Correspondence Course

Following the second world war, (1938 to 1945) a lot of people in England and also the Commonwealth had missed vital many years of the amount; for most, employment and career progression benefitted from something known as a 'Correspondence Course'.

These were fairly successful since the learning was often in a house environment plus it had not been unusual for other family members in order to be useful. There'd be face to face help and discussions regarding the course work fitness center with friends / colleagues in the workplace. The correspondence course was considered a very good method of online.

The Open University

In the 60's the UK Government desired to produce a 'wireless university' and in 1964 Labour won the Election; their election manifesto contained a commitment to ascertain 'The University in the Air', a wireless University.

In 1969, the Open University was formed, by on this occasion most homes in the united kingdom had a television, and the lessons were broadcast both for the radio and on it, typically in throughout the night or early hours with the morning, after the daytime transmissions had finished. Inside mid 70's, the VHS video recorder was introduced, and learners were able to record and watch the lessons during the day.

The distance teaching and learning methods of outdoors University were a success, reasons why are outlined below:-

1) These were a blend of proper lectures that have been recorded in a television studio to make sure they could be watched around the television. Following your introduction in the VCR, students could watch a lecture again to guarantee they fully understood it.

2) Students met a tutor of their local area for personally discussions.

3) Every year they took a Summer School at 'an authentic University' which boosted morale and gave them the confidence and prestige that other Students gained from going to University.

4) Learners had structures e-lessons.

Outside University can be defined as a mix of teaching and learning techniques

Observe that 1), 2) and 3) all have visual elements for them. Determine that you're in a classroom and still have to blindfolded, your learning will be impaired. Also 2) and 3) have interactive communication.

ICT, Learn Direct

Inside the 1990's people in education were discussing ICT (Information and Communications Technology). ICT has been around since schools; it was successful because along with structured e-learning, teaching was again a blend that incorporated a 'visual' aspect, together with one on one interaction with peers and teachers.

In 2000, responding on the New Labour concept of a school for Industry, LearnDirect premiered; it turned out initially successful because (due to limitations with online connections and computers) many learners attended Learn Direct Centres coupled with a blend that incorporated in the flesh tuition. As Learn Direct moved from this teaching blend having an interactive visual element (with real people) and moved towards e-learning with no 'Learn Direct Centres' it became noticeably less successful.

The e-University -a tremendous failure

That year 2000, the Open University would have been a success, ICT assisted e-learning would have been a success and Learn Direct with e-learning was working well.

There seemed no reason why an e-University shouldn't be roaring success, but it surely turned out to be an immense failure and was abandoned in 2004 after wasting £62 million. In retrospect, the decline that subsequently happened in Learn Direct was as a result of it moving away from the mixture of e-learning that incorporated the harder expensive, visually interactive and staffed Learn Direct centres. In 2011 Learn Direct was sold. The e-University would have been a failure for similar reason, it was not an acceptable blend of 'visually connected learning', it had been just e-learning.

Why e-learning devoid of the visual blend failed:-

Learners became and they are accustomed to receiving large amount expertise from the net. They learn efficiently from 'hyper-short bursts of audio and visual information'. The lengths of video trailers are great degrees of the optimum lengths of 'hyper short bursts of learning material', because doing so has become established that information from movie trailers is absorbed efficiently. YouTube identified the perfect amount of videos for maximum effect, and preferred videos which are five minutes and shorter.

Conclusion

Many e-learning projects failed, a variety of them failed spectacularly. The successful e-learning projects has a combination of visual and 'people' interaction; this may easily be achieved with today's 'Connected Visuals'. There now exists the technology for content rich, entertaining, interactive online e-learning software. Charges are less than 50 % that of other styles of learning / training and is also ideally fitted to blend with or replace 'in-house' company training.